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Jiortf) American Sntrian Cabalrp 



ARGUMENT 

BY 

Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Sixty-fifth Congress 

ON 

H. R. 3970 



To Organize Ten or More Regiments of Indian Cavalry 

as Part of the Military Forces of the United 

States, to be Known as the North 

American Indian Cavalry 



Delivered Wednesday, July 25, 1917 



J" 



COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS 

House of Representatives 
Sixty-Fifth Congress 

S. Hubert Dent, Jr., Alabama, Chairman 



William J. Fields, Kentucky 
Percy E. Quin, Mississippi 
William Gordon, Ohio 
A. C. Shallenberger, Nebraska 
Charles Pope Caldwell, New York 
James W. Wise, Georgia 
Richard Olney, Massachusetts 
Samuel J. Nicholls, South Carolina 
T. W. Harrison, Virginia 
Daniel E. Garrett, Texas 
George R. Lunn, New York 



Julius Kahn, California 
Daniel R. Anthony, Jr., Kansas 
John C. McKenzie, Illinois 
Frank L. Greene, Vermont 
John M. Morin, Pennsylvania 
John Q. Tilson, Connecticut 
Thomas S. Crago, Pennsylvania 
Harry E. Hull, Iowa 
James H. Davidson, Wisconsin 
J. Kuhio Kalanianaole, Hawaii 

Mark L. Black, Clerk 



GIFT 
AUTHOR 

JUL 28 '28 



House of Representatives, 
Washington, D. C. 

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock A. M., Wednesday, July 25, 
1917, Hon. S. Hubert Dent, Jr. (chairman) presiding. 

The Chairman. Gentlemen, I called this meeting this morning 
at the request of Mr. Kahn, who wanted a hearing on a bill which 
he has introduced (H. R. 3970) to organize ten or more regiments of 
Indian cavalry. 

Mr. Kahn. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I would like to intro- 
duce Mr. Dixon, who knows a great deal about the American Indian. 



ARGUMENT OF DR. JOSEPH KOSSUTH DIXON, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee, the subject before us 
this morning is one of such profound and vital interest, both to the Nation 
and to a great race of people, that while I endeavor to go into the matter 
somewhat extensively, I am very sure that I shall have your patient interest 
and sympathy. 

THE FLAG The Stars and Stripes have never known defeat. The flag 
IN PERIL of Freedom has never trailed in the dust. It has been torn 
by shot and shell, the thunderbolts of war have been hurled 
against it, but the stars in the blue above have looked down upon the stars 
in the field of blue below and anxious, loyal hearts have uttered the glad 
cry, the Old Flag "is still there." 

To-day the flag is in peril. Above it floats another banner — a banner 
that must come down. Across its folds, written in letters of fire, you may 
read the ominous words, "ENDANGERED LIBERTY." 

In the steeples of time the clock is striking the hour of destiny for 
this nation. For the American Republic it is the Day of Judgment. The 
day is dawning for the dethronement of the impious rule of Kings and the 
enthronement of the dominion of Liberty for all peoples. The call to war 
has come — the inspired call of the President has reached the ear of the 
nation, and from city and hamlet and rural highway men are springing to 
arms in the defense of their homes and their nation, and for the destruc- 
tion of the Old World despotism. Already our boys in khaki are facing 
the forces on the shell-torn fields of France ; already the voice of our flag 
has said — the murder of innocent children sleeping amid the ooze of the 
deep sea-bottom shall be avenged; already the flag above the trenches 
seals the verdict that the dust of Emperors and Kings shall sift across the 
desert and the whole world shall breathe the air of liberty. 

The fight is on. The Senate and the Congress of the United States 
placed in the hands of the President the resources of the nation to join 
hands with the peoples of Europe who have been fighting our battles for 
us, to wrest victory from the savage and barbarous hand of German 
autocracy. 

The President will need every resource of the nation. The Congress 
pledged the President every resource of the nation. 

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The purpose of this bill is to make available immediately and effect- 
ively one of our resources to which little heed has been paid. There is a 
great, unused, potential military force in the United States. It is to be 
found in the 189 tribes of the North American Indian. This force is a 
far-flung host, scattered from the Penobscot in Maine to the shores of the 
peaceful Pacific, and from Itasca's springs, whence flows the "Father 
of Waters," to the Everglades of Florida. These people are now called 
the "Wards of the Government." They are capable of becoming a staple 
and effective part of the military organization of the country. 

This bill authorizes the recruiting of ten or more regiments of Indian 
cavalry; and in return for the service which these red men stand ready 
to render the nation, it is provided that they shall be given citizenship — a 
return which can be considered simply as fair play; for if a man is 
willing to lay down his life for a country, he surely ought to be made a 
part of that country. 

OUR RESPONSIBILITY We are face to face with a responsibility that 

beckons from the folding wigwam and the 
dying echo of moccasined feet. I place in your hands today the destiny 
of a whole race of people. In the geographies the North American Indian 
is registered as one of the five great races of the world. I am not to 
discuss the tragedies of yesterday so much as to point out the triumphs 
of tomorrow. It is not my concern so much what we have done to the 
Indian as it is what we shall now do with the Indian, what we shall do 
for the Indian, and what we shall do for ourselves by helping the Indian. 

MANY There are many reasons why we should avail ourselves of 

REASONS this military resource. A searchlight on our past may 
become a beacon light for our future. Let me turn, there- 
fore, to the 

I. In the early settlement of this country, the 

EARLY HISTORY Spaniards came with the avowed purpose of 

OF THE INDIAN conquest and subjugation. The French sought 

ON THIS CONTINENT profit both for themselves and their king, but 

they employed conciliatory measures. The 
English principle assumed exclusive title based on the right of discovery, 
and made no provision for the political or civil rights of the native 
inhabitants. 

The Pilgrim Fathers lived up to the spirit of this principle. They 
came to this country as exiles. They fled from one sort of tyranny, and 
had no sooner landed on these shores than they established another sort 
of tyranny. Because the colonists differed so radically in social position ; 
because there was such an admixture of wealth and poverty; the weaker 
feared the stronger, they therefore entered into a covenant before landing, 
enacting laws and ordinances which were to work for the general 
good of the new community. But these laws and ordinances did not 

4 



include the Indian. In the new government formed, the Indian was not 
accorded any civil or political rights. 

These very Indians were a free and independent people, associated 
together in nations and tribes and governed by their own laws. Their 
government was a perfect democracy, the Chief ruling by will of the 
People. Is there any record of the settlers of this country ever treating 
with the established government they found on these shores? 

Chief Justice Taney, in the celebrated Dred Scott case, a decision 
which President Lincoln most caustically denounced, says of the African : 

"It was too plain for argument that they had never been regarded 
as a part of the people or citizens of the State, nor supposed to 
possess any political rights which the dominant race might not with- 
hold or grant at their pleasure." 

This is precisely the position held by the nation with reference to 
the Indian, from the time of the compact made on the deck of the little 
ship in the Bay of Cape Cod, until this present hour. The English 
colonists regarded the Indian as a barbarian; he has been so regarded 
and so treated since 1620. 



II. The Indian gave the white man the right hand of 

CHARACTER OF fellowship when he landed on these new shores. 
THE INDIAN Columbus, writing to his sovereign, says : 

"THERE ARE NOT A BETTER PEOPLE IN THE WORLD 
THAN THESE, NOR MORE AFFECTIONATE, AFFABLE AND 
MILD; THEY LOVE THEIR NEIGHBORS AS THEMSELVES." 

Again, he writes: 

"Laying aside prejudice, they are among the highest types of 
native men." 

Later history fully corroborates these impressions of the great 
discoverer. Their spirit of intrepidity, their unwearying fidelity, their 
unswerving integrity, their unstained honor, their unimpeachable 
veracity, their undaunted bravery, their loyal friendship, their glad spirit 
of service, even when they knew that they had been wronged. The 
virility of mind displayed, the powers of statesmanship demonstrated, 
the oratorical ability achieved, all conspire to invest them with a suprem- 
acy of character little dreamed of in the common estimate of the Indian. 

Where, I ask you, in the annals of the world can you point to a race 
of people who for three hundred years and more could resist the aggres- 
sions of four great nations — England, France, Spain and America — with- 
out any of the resources of civilization? For almost that entire period 
they numbered not more than three hundred thousand warriors, and 
for most of that time could not make a gun, a ball, a knife, or an ounce 
of powder. Without character, what race of people could endure the 
strain without uttermost annihilation? 



III. The Indian made reprisals. Of course he 

THE TREATMENT OF did. He had a right to make reprisals. 

THE INDIAN ACCORDED When the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the 
BY CIVILIZATION shores of New England the Indian gave 

these fugitives from the Old World tyranny 
a v^^elcome, and stood mutely, silently, and with grave interest, to witness 
what they would do. They listened to the professions of faith and loyalty 
to the Supreme Being. They had a religion of their own, which they 
contrasted, and then, in amazement, they wondered how these Pilgrims 
could profess and reconcile their professions of faith in God, and at the 
same time push them out of their homes and seize their lands. They 
also feared because, four years before, an English trading vessel had 
anchored in this same bay, the traders came ashore and captured twenty- 
one Indians and carried them away to be sold as slaves in Spain. Still 
the Indian showed friendship. When Governor Bradford proclaimed his 
first Thanksgiving dinner for a bountiful harvest, Chief Massasoit 
gathered with his braves and participated in the celebration. THEN — 
came the white man's covetousness for the homes and the land of the 
Indian; and the Indian marveled at the effect of this new religion. The 
red man was driven back — and still back. 

Is it assumed that when he was attacked, his home pillaged and 
destroyed, his children slain, his land stolen, that he had no right to 
defend himself? Is Belgium condemned because the guns of an invading 
and devastating army were trained upon her homes, her libraries, and 
her cathedrals? 

Some of the reddest chapters of our frontier life were written in 
the blood of Indian warfare. It is largely accounted for in the fact that 
every geographical step of civilization westward has been made over the 
demolished teepe of the Indian and the despoliation of every interest of 
his life. 

In addition, after the greatest civil struggle in history had ended 
in the emancipation of one type of color, the victorious captain said, 
"Let us have peace," and then he proceeded to cut in pieces another type 
of color, using the flower and chivalry of the Federal army for the prose- 
cution of his work. The Indian said: "No! This land is ours. We hold a 
deed in fee simple, registered in the archives of heaven. The ground is 
our mother, therefore we cannot part with this land — it belongs to the 
generations past and to the generations yet to come." And he proceeded 
with a whip of small cords to drive the invader out of his temple. The 
answer was the flash of the sword and the smell of powder. 

Civilization thereupon proceeded to demolish his philosophy of life, 
destroy his religion, seal the lips of his oratory, strike to the earth his 
age-long customs and ceremonies, deprive him of his personal rights, 
banish his costumes and manner of dress, forbid the wearing of eagle 
feathers — his symbol of "victory" — for no eagle feather that had soared 
in the blue was ever allowed a place in his war bonnet, save by vote of the 
council of the tribe as a token of some deed of valor. 



If there is right to deprive the Indian of his "Victoria Cross," then 
is there not equal right to take from the coats of the glorious veterans of 
the Civil War the Grand Army buttons? Civilization has corrupted the 
Indian instead of incorporating him into the body politic. For his code 
of honor vi^e have substituted broken treaties. Even the conception of 
these treaties was fraudulent. It may be stated without fear of challenge 
that every treaty made with the Indians for the sale of their lands was 
consummated by undue pressure, was not understood by the Indians, and 
was characterized by flattery and misrepresentation. Let me cite a 
pertinent example: 

When the Erie Canal was well forward in its construction, it was 

desirable to give impetus to western immigration. The West must be 

opened up. The United States must have more land. The chiefs refused 

to sell. Chief Metea protested with great eloquence — the Indians were 

intimidated. Fraud and whisky conquered. So palpable was the fraud 

that the "London Times" said of it: 

"The United States have driven a hard bargain with the miserable . 

Indians. For forty-five thousand dollars ($45,000.00) in merchandise 
they have prevailed upon the helpless aborigines to surrender five 
millions of acres of fertile land to the westward of the Lakes, equal in 
surface to about one-fourth of Ireland." 

Thus the catalog goes endlessly on — these are but hints by the way. 

IV. When the first map of America was drawn it 

THE PRESENT-DAY ^'^^ dotted with the wigwams of one million two 

STATUS OF THE hundred thousand red men. After painstaking 

INDIAN research on the part of the Bureau of Ethnology 

it has been determined that the decrease in Indian 
population amounts to sixty-five per cent., leaving a fading remnant of 
three hundred and twenty thousand. 

There are four contributing causes to the decimation of the race : 

First. The introduction of disease — by the white man. 

Second. The introduction of whisky — by the white man. 

Third. Tribal wars — and warfare with the white man. 

Fourth. The housing of the Indian upon inhospitable reservations — 
by the white man. 

Some of these reservations abound in fertile acres, with rich minerals ; 

but the majority of them are an assignment of territory upon which a 

white man would starve. A conspicuous example is to be found in the 

Navajos — twenty-eight thousand in number — brought up from the south 

and quartered on the Arizona desert — the boast is made "twelve million 

acres." The Spanish has it "Arid Zone." Twelve million acres of miserere. 

A dirge of landscape. Vast and forbidding stretches of glistening sand 

that drifts like the snow. Water holes composed of salt, soap and alkali, 

twenty-five to fifty miles apart, where the sun, a molten ball of fire, pours 

down upon the fetid waters. The cattle and sheep wade in it and drink it ; 

the Indian washes his clothes in it, and then drinks it — it is all that he 

has to drink. You could not raise a radish here any more than you 

could raise an angel. 

7 



The reservation is without mitigation a system of slavery, despair 
and vagabondage. The Indian may not leave the boundary of his prison- 
acreage without a passport. The will of the reservation superintendent 
is law, and he alone is responsible to the one power above him. All 
requests, however small or personal, must pass through his office. A 
Christian civilization should regenerate. The reservation degenerates. 
It devastates, dethrones, destroys. Is it mockery to call it civilization? 
Is it slavery? Have we freed one race and enslaved another? 

Is it not time to clear our own land of autocracy before we attempt 
- to wipe autocracy from the map of Germany? Is it not more than autoc- 
racy? Is it not despotism pure and simple? Have we not interned a 
whole race of people, not for a period lasting "during the war," but 
for life? 

The condition of the Indian is anomalous in the history of civiliza- 
tion, and an indictment of the Declaration of Independence. 

Mr. Kahn. Let me ask you this question: I saw some officers of 
the Interior Department not long ago, and they told me that there is 
deep sympathy between the Indians on the American side of the 
Rio Grande and the Indians — the Yaquis — of Mexico, and that they 
have secret methods of intercommunication. If the Indians on the 
American side of the line were to be organized into these regiments 
and were to become United States soldiers, do you think that would 
have effect in keeping the border Indians in Mexico in peace, so that 
we would have no further border troubles in Mexico? 

Dr. Dixon. I most surely do, Mr. Kahn. There is a telegram in 
this morning's paper from El Paso which says that the Germans are 
leading the Villa forces to victory and that they have already cap- 
tured three towns, and we are going to hear from the southern border. 
In my argument later on I take up quite fully this very question. 

Mr. McKenzie. Will you let me ask you a question right there? 
Are the men that these Germans are leading in Mexico Indians or 
are they Mexicans? 

Dr. Dixon. The backbone of the Mexican military forces is com- 
posed of these Yaqui Indians. 

Mr. Anthony. Is it not true that the Yaqui Indians have always 
been in opposition to the Mexican Government? 

Dr. Dixon. No; they are fighting with the Government. 

Mr. Anthony. My information has been that they have always 
opposed the Government of Mexico; in fact, have always opposed 
all organized government. 

Dr. Dixon. Then if that be true, and that point is well taken, 
they will oppose Carranza and unite with Villa. 

Mr. Anthony. Are the Indians that you propose to enroll in these 
regiments registered now under the draft? 

Dr. Dixon. I presume they are. 

Mr. Anthony. Then would not the War Department have au- 
thority now to organize these Indians into regfiments if it desired? 

Dr. Dixon. If they desired they could organize them into regi- 
ments, but that does not touch the point of citizenship. 

Mr. Anthony. Are not all Indians who have been allotted lands 
citizens now? 

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Dr. Dixon. They are, nominally, but all of them are not in reality. 
I am coming to that point in a moment. 

Mr. Greene. May I ask you a question? Under the present military 
law there is provision for Indian scouts, and we have one or two 
organizations of Indian scouts who are not attached to the regular 
establishment. 

Dr. Dixon. Yes; the law reads "that no alien, black or white, may 
become a part of the military organization of this country except the 
Indian." 

Mr. Greene. Now, these Indians have served ever since 

Dr. Dixon (interposing). Ever since 1861. 

Mr. Greene. Ever since the Civil War as Indian scouts. Has the 
question of their citizenship ever been raised as an incident either 
to their obligation to serve or their reward for service? 

Dr. Dixon. Never. 

Mr. Greene. And these men have been serving right along regu- 
larly and have never raised the question of having citizenship held 
out to them, but were glad to get the job of serving under the cir- 
cumstances? 

Dr. Dixon. They were glad to express their patriotism, but would 
also have been glad to have been made a part of the country which 
they were serving, but were not afforded the opportunity; and there 
is not an example of patriotism abroad or in the whole Republic that 
is so fine as just that. 

Mr. Greene. But they were professional scouts, serving for a 
consideration? 

Dr. Dixon. The Indian is not a professional scout, he is a born 
scout. He is a scout from the cradle up. 

Mr. Greene. Of course, if he employs his inheritance for a liveli- 
hood, it becomes a profession. 

Dr. Dixon. Yes; it becomes a profession, I presume, but he loves it. 

Mr. Greene. I understand that. 

Mr. Kahn. Mr. Dixon, you have been acquainted with the Ameri- 
can Indians for a great many years? 

Dr. Dixon. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Kahn. For how long? 

Dr. Dixon. Fifteen years. 

Mr. Kahn. And have you traveled extensively among the Indian 
tribes? 

Dr. Dixon. I visited every tribe of Indians in the United States 
in 1913, and studied their home life, their manners and customs, their 
sports and their methods of warfare. 

Mr. Kahn. Did you have occasion to interview them about this 
very question of their being organized into regiments to defend the 
border of the United States? 

Dr. Dixon. Not on that expedition, but I have interviewed numer- 
ous prominent Indians since then with reference to it. 

Mr. Kahn. What did they say about it? 

Dr. Dixon. They are anxious to do it, but they are anxious to join 
the Army as units. They want to preserve an esixrit de corps. They 
want to show the Nation that they can come back. They want to show 
that they have got the Indian spirit, and the desire to fight side by 

9 



side, and they also express a wish that they fight under competent 
United States Army officers. They do not want officers appointed by 
the Governors of States for political reasons. They want well-trained 
United States Army officers to lead them. 

Mr. Kahn. They have so expressed themselves to you? 

Dr. Dixon. Yes. 

Mr. Gordon. Mr. Dixon, you have raised a very interesting ques- 
tion here. The Constitution of the United States provides that all 
persons born or naturalized within the United States are citizens of 
the United States. Now, I have always understood, as a matter of 
law, that that applied to every Indian who had severed his tribal 
relations. Now, for whom do you speak here — Indians who maintain 
their tribal relations or those who have severed that relation? If you 
speak for those who have severed their tribal relation, there is no doubt 
in my mind but what they are citizens of the United States and subject 
to this draft. 

Dr. Dixon. There are men who are members of the Indian tribes 
who are citizens, and there are hosts of others who are not citizens. 
They are entitled to citizenship, but their land is so entailed that they 
can not become citizens, and it is a misnomer to call them citizens. 
According to the ruling of the Supreme Court, no Indian who is not 
taxed can become a citizen, so that any untaxed Indian, whether he 
has severed his tribal relation or not, can not therefore be named as 
a citizen of the United States. 

Let me further say that the Indian has been given citizenship by 
the allotment of his land, but the allotment of that land was con- 
ditioned, and citizenship was to come to him upon the receipt of a 
patent in fee simple to the land. But that patent in fee simple was 
to be given after 25 years, so that the Indian is held off from citizen- 
ship. His citizenship was curtailed, cut down, sliced off by land laws, 
and he is not a citizen and can not be. It is a sham and a mockery. 

Mr. Gordon. How many Indians are there now in the United 
States? 

Dr. Dixon. Three hundred and twenty thousand. The original 
number was 1,200,000. 

Mr. Kahn. How many males of military age? 

Dr. Dixon. I could not give you that figure, Mr. Kahn. 

Mr. Gordon. That would make over 50,000. 

Dr. Dixon. I went to every reservation in the United States in 
1913, after the Indians had raised the United States flag at Fort 
Wadsworth, and they said that never before had they felt they were 
part of this country, and Mr. Wanamaker said that if these grizzled 
old warriors felt that way, "you had better go out to every tribe in 
the United States and raise the United States flag." The Indian was 
a man without a flag and they never had a flag until I gave them that 
flag through the efforts of Mr. Wanamaker. The eloquence of some 
of their speeches in the raising of the flag was equal to a Clay or a 
Webster. They signed this declaration of allegiance to the Govern- 
ment. They are full of patriotism, and are ready to spring now to the 
defense of the country. 

In Independence Hall, Philadelphia, there hangs the sublimest of all 
our nation's heirlooms — the Old Liberty Bell. Around its worn bronze 
dome you read the immortal lettering from the great Lawgiver of Israel : 
"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND, 
TO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF." 

10 



Let the hand of Democracy carve another line : 
"THE INDIAN EXCEPTED." 

Liberty for the black man, the brown man, the yellow man, the white 
man, but no liberty for the Indian. Today the Indian has no rights in 
the courts of the land. He cannot prosecute a single case in the Court of 
Claims without a special act of the Congress in each individual case. The 
hour has come to ratify the Declaration of Independence — or to resurrect 
Thomas Jefferson and ask him to redraft the immortal document. 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

This sublime impeachment of autocracy was sealed with the blood of 
patriots amid the snows of Valley Forge, on the crimson heights of Bunker 
Hill, and the reddened fields of Lexington, Ticonderoga and Yorktown. 
For this liberty Washington fought, and for this liberty Lincoln bled 
and died. 

Our own great President said in his wonderful Mobile speech that 
liberty must be assured to every man, woman and child in the broad domain 
of the United States. In the great State papers that have issued from 
his pen during the controversy with the rampant despotism of the Imperial 
German Empire, the President has repeatedly and forcefully declared that 
smaller and dependent peoples shall be protected and their interests safe- 
guarded — that "the WORLD shall be made safe for democracy." 

President Wilson's message to Russia rings true for an entire and 
absolute reversal of our treatment of the North American Indian. He 
said: 

"We are fighting for the liberty, the self-government, and the 
undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settle- 
ment that concludes this war must be conceived and executed for that 
purpose. Wrongs must first be righted, then adequate safeguards must 
be created to prevent their being committed again. 

"WHATEVER READJUSTMENTS ARE NECESSARY MUST 
BE MADE. 

"But they must follow a principle, and that principle is plain. 

"NO PEOPLE MUST BE FORCED UNDER SOVEREIGNTY 
UNDER WHICH IT DOES NOT WISH TO LIVE." 

This righteous doctrine, this sublime sentiment, this God-directed 
statesmanship, applies to the Indian nation as fully as it applies to the 
Russian nation — to any and all nations. 

The Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, declared on Independence 
Day last, in the Stadium of the College of the City of New York, that 

"We must keep the faith here. We must preserve the sweetness 
of our rights. We must agTee in deeds of gi-ace here, as our soldiers 
do deeds of grace on the other side." 

Continuing his most remarkable address, the Honorable Secretary 
further said: 

"I can see the day when this harbor of yours will be filled with 
the mass of ships returning from abroad and bringing back our sol- 
diers. They will come it may be with their ranks somewhat thinned 

11 



by sacrifice, but with themselves glorified by accomplishment; and 
when those heroes step off the boats, and come ashore and tell us that 
they have won the fight for democracy in Europe, we must be able 
to tell them in return that we have kept the faith of democracy at 
home and won battles here for that cause while they were fighting 
there." 

Mr. Chairman, does not this all mean that every resource and every 
recourse of democracy must be immediately and effectively applied to the 
alleviation of the condition of the North American Indian? Does it not 
mean that if our history is not to be written down as a vain show; that 
if these inspired utterances are not to be proven mere "scraps of paper," 
that this Committee will speedily and favorably report this bill and 
earnestly prosecute its passage, and thus pave the way for a new Declara- 
tion of Independence and the emancipation of a whole race of people? 
And thus again verify the words of Secretary Baker — 

"PRESERVE THE SWEETNESS OF OUR RIGHTS." 

Let us bear in mind that we shall never work out efficient and worthy 
methods for other nations, and our own nation as well, "unless we pre- 
serve certain old-fashioned virtues which lie at the root of every species 
of public and of private usefulness." 

The attempt will utterly fail to restore devastated France, to reestab- 
lish blighted Belgium, and erase the scars from stricken Serbia and Poland, 
unless we champion most gloriously the rights of a stricken people within 
the confines of our own borders. A people who under the present paternal 
system of Indian administration are deprived of every self-independent 
right, who are languishing in misery and dying of starvation and tubercu- 
losis, superinduced by this process of starvation. 

V. Europe is a charnel house. Europe holds the 

THE IRRECONCILABLE bloodiest battlefields the world has ever 
CONFLICT FOR known. Europe has had three of the blackest 

DEMOCRACY IS ON ! years of pain and sorrow the world has ever 

registered — three years of unfailing courage, 
three years of devotion and death. And now our boys will fill unnumbered 
and unknown graves. America will bleed, and dig as many graves in the 
hearts of the people as stranger hands will dig amid the wreck of battle. 

Why all this atheism of despair, this glorified self-effacement and 
sacrifice — that our own liberty may be preserved and perpetuated and 
democracy be the realized ideal of every world-nation? 

We have fallen upon days of a militant democracy. Never before 
in the history of man has the public mind been so saturated with a desire 
to assert itself as a positive, dominant factor as today. This is an era 
of agitation and reform. The whole world is rampant of individual and 
political rights and privileges. The world is but following in the wake 
of this Republic. When Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and others of 
that noble band of men, flung out the banner of freedom, they were the 
representatives of a militant democracy, challenging every throne and 
every occupant of a throne, every despotic and autocratic government, 

12 



to mortal combat. War on autocracy was declared in 1776, not in 1917. 
The United States set in action then, and has kept in action ever since, 
the forces that are warring against autocracy in Europe at this hour. 
Hence it is that this is not a war of nations and races, it is the mighty 
cataclysm brought about by the final clash between an ever-advancing 
and all-powerful democracy and the despotic barbarism of an Old World 
autocracy. 

Since all of this is all of it true, corroborated by the blinding stress 
of this tragic hour; the proclamations of the President and the legisla- 
tion of this great body, the pity and hurt of it all is that as a nation of 
freemen we have dispossessed a race of people of their homes and their 
land — vanquished them because we had the power to do it at the point of 
the bayonet. They have proudly and solemnly marched to their last out- 
post — no longer owners of the soil, but still makers and founders of a life 
that created warriors, orators and MEN. 

Proof that we are MEN, proof that we are true lovers of liberty, that 
we have entered into this WORLD-CONTEST with clean hands, clean 
consciences, and a pure purpose to shed righteous blood for a righteous 
cause, may now be found in a like manly, clean, and righteous fulfillment 
of the ideals of democracy as applied to the despoiling conditions that 
have been allowed to obtain under the flag born in liberty and baptized 
with the blood of liberty. Men and patriots, until we can eradicate and 
uproot every vestige of despotism on these shores, let our guns rem.ain 
silent and our swords sheathed in the cause of liberty across the seas. 

THIS you will do! This done! Let me turn to the consideration of 

VL The most audacious prophet may not fore- 

THE AVAILABILITY AND tell the end of this titanic struggle. The 
ADAPTABILITY OF THE most common sort of prudence demands 
INDIAN AS A SOLDIER that every possible resource of the nation 

be immediately and completely requisi- 
tioned. Patriotism demands it, and the paramount obligation we owe to 
the soldiers who go forth to do battle for us compels it. Our safety as a 
nation makes it imperative! 

Transposing a little a New Testament declaration — 

"How shall we escape if we neglect any salvation." 

Within reach of our hands there is a mighty potential military force. 
The Indian can fight, and will fight. More than this, he is willing and 
anxious to fight. By no stretch of the imagination can we conceive of the 
Indian as a pacifist! Indeed, his entire history has been a record of proud 
and militant defense of what he believed to be his rights and of patient 
and tireless resistance of what he regarded as oppression. Whatever we 
may be forced to admit of some Americans to-day, we must concede that 
the original Americans have never been rightfully accused of cowardice, 
of shirking, as being "slackers," or dodging a fight. 

The Indian has ever been a warrior. Centuries of struggle against 
the forces of nature, and intertribal conflicts, and in later years of 

13 



resistance to the encroachments of the white race, have litted him for that 
role. He has all the qualities of the natural soldier — strength, courage, 
intelligence, loyalty, power of endurance, stoicism, sagacity, persistence and 
relentlessness of purpose. He is a good hater and a staunch friend, a 
valorous ally and a fearless foe. We have been taught too much concern- 
ing the savagery of the Indian, and too little of his virtues, when contrasted 
with the barbarous brutalities, the unspeakable cruelties, the nameless 
and diabolical atrocities practiced by that self-styled flower of "KULTUR" 
who now seeks to blight the civilization of the whole world. 

However, disciplined Indian forces have never been charged with 
cruelty or savagery. That the Indian responds to discipline, and that most 
readily and efficaciously, we have abundant and the best authority. 

In the early '90's Lieut. Hugh L. Scott, now Major-General Scott, 
Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army, recruited and commanded a troop of 
Indians, which became Troop L of the 7th Cavalry. I quote from the 
Inspector-General of the Army, dated April 2, 1893, which says : 

"This troop has been organized about a year, and is as far 
advanced as some troops of white men. Considering that the troop is 
made up of wild Indians, who do not speak or understand English, 
it is certainly remarkable the state of proficiency they have been 
brought to, both in drill and discipline, and in so short a time." 

Again, Major A. S. Daggett, 13th Infantry, reports from Fort Sill, 
Oklahoma Territory, under date of June 2, 1893, to Lieut. Scott: 

"Having been present at the monthly inspection of your troop on 
the 31st ult., I want to say for your encouragement how gratified I 
was at its appearance. A little more than a year ago they were 
blanket Indians; now they represent a clean and neat appearance, and 
stand in line with a soldierly bearing. As far as my observation goes, 
they are performing well all the duties required of white soldiers. At 
all fire drills they have invariably been the first on the ground. I have 
had no better orderlies than those selected from the troop. If in one 
year's time these Indians have made such progress, what shall we 
predict of them after they have had four or five years of service? I 
believe that under your wise and judicious direction they are making 
rapid advancement toward civilization." 

And again, under date of July 1, 1893, Major Daggett reported con- 
cerning this troop : 

"First Lieut. H. L. Scott, Seventh Cavalry, during the past 
twelve months, transformed a number of blanket Indians into a clean, 
orderly and fairly well drilled and disciplined body of soldiers. Their 
bearing and general appearance on review were fine. If they make 
as rapid progress in the future as in the past, they will be among 
the very best soldiers in the army." 

Major, now Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles, then commander of 
the Department of Missouri, forwarded to the Adjutant-General of the 
Army this statement relative to these Indians : 

"Regarding the recommendation to disband Troop L, Seventh 
Cavalry, I would not recommend it, unless the men were immediately 
re-enlisted as Scouts." 

14 



All these quotations are taken from the published military record of 
Major-General Hugh L. Scott, U. S. A., Chief of Staff, and I am informed 
that General Scott is in substantial accord with the proposition now 
advanced to recruit Indian cavalry regiments for the present war emer- 
gency. General Scott, perhaps more than any other man, has had the 
experience to qualify him as a judge of the soldierly qualities and possi- 
bilities of the American Indian. 

General Miles is another who can bear witness as to their efficiency, 
especially as scouts, for it is well known that Indians in that capacity 
were invaluable, and in many instances indispensable, to our forces in their 
campaigns in the West. 

During Revolutionary times the Indian fought valiantly for the new 
Colonies. It was the barrier drawn across the State of New York by the 
Iroquois that kept the French north of the St. Lawrence, and prevented 
the destruction of the Colonies in the eastern States. It was the constant 
raiding of the Mohawks, Oneidas and Senecas upon the French settlements 
in Canada, and against the Huron allies of the French dominion, that it 
collapsed altogether under the assault of Wolfe. 

The martial power of the Six Nations was broken forever in the 
Revolutionary War by General John Sullivan, but not before it had helped 
to determine the fate of all North America. 

In the Civil War there were Indian soldiers with both the Federal 
and Confederate armies. 

There is this day a Grand Army of the Republic Post on the Menomi- 
nee Reservation, Wisconsin, composed entirely of Indian veterans of the 
Civil War — men who wear medals of honor for bravery in battle. 

The roll of Indian fighters and military leaders would sound like the 
muster of the great captains of history. Red Cloud, a masterly leader 
and general ; Two Moons, who led the Northern Cheyennes against Custer ; 
Chief Joseph, the Leonidas of his race; Little Wolf, the Marshal Ney of 
the Northern Cheyennes; Chief Gall, who led the Sioux against Custer; 
American Horse, orator, statesman and general ; Spotted Tail ; White Bull ; 
Sitting Bull; Tecumseh; Major-General John A. Logan, a hero on Southern 
battlefields; General John Morgan, a brigade commander on the staff of 
General Grant. The list might be extended, and would include notable 
Indians of notable military achievement. 

It must be further borne in mind that everything in the early train- 
ing of an Indian boy made for hardihood, bravery and endurance. He 
exemplifies the Swiss military idea of universal service — ability to gain a 
livelihood in the open, and accurately fire a gun. Before he could walk 
he was taught the use of the bow and arrow, and before he could walk he 
was taught to ride. Warriorship attained, he entered manhood a magnifi- 
cent horseman, a good shot, and with a knowledge of nature that gave him 
insight useful as a strategist. His life in the open gave him an observant 
eye, prompt in detecting the slightest mark at his feet, or an object on the 
distant horizon. 

15 



Mr. Francis La Flesche, the Indian author, serving as Assistant Eth- 
nologist in the Bureau of Ethnology, is responsible for the revelation of 
another interesting phase of Indian vi^arfare. He calls attention to the 
fact that Indians long ago had adopted the trench warfare of today. In 
their vi^ar operations they dug trenches for the purpose of concealing 
themselves from the enemy, as well as for use in hiding their women and 
children during a fight. 

Colonel Dodge has described the Indian system of signalling as worthy 
of all praise. 

To any possible objection to the recruiting of Indian regiments com- 
posed solely of Indians, it need only be answered that we have permitted 
the black man to have regiments of his own color in the regular army, and 
surely we should not deny the red man the right accorded the black. More- 
over, the record of the black regiments stands forth with a distinct merit. 

Again, it is a fact that the segregation of troops according to race 
is an idea adopted by all nations. Fighting on the Western front today 
there is a medley of races — battalions that include the picturesque tribes 
from the four corners of the earth : the Turcos, the Senegalese, Gurkhas, 
Arabs, Maoris, Cossacks, the Nigerians, and the strange little brown 
Papuans from the Fiji Islands. Let the Indian troops be distinctive. The 
Greeks had their Thessalonian cavalry, the Turks their Mamelukes, the 
Russians their Cossacks, and the Germans their Uhlans, all of them dis- 
tinctive, all of them effective. 

When banded together as one people there is an esprit de corps, a unity 
of feeling, an enthusiasm and an expression of daring purpose, not to be 
compassed in any other possible fashion. 

The Indian should be given opportunity to shine as the noble Red Man 
before his light as a people wholly fades. He would "come back" in a 
moment if allowed. What better service in these latter days could we 
render, after a "Century of Dishonor," than to clear our skirts as best we 
nationally can and give the Indians their chance to make historic record 
in these momentous days, of their sterling worth ? It would be a crime to 
crush what may well be called "An Indian Spirit." We crush that spirit 
if we insist that he take his place beside that of the white man. 

The enlistment of purely Indian units would also have a psychological 
effect upon the entire country. The enlistment of purely Indian units would 
fire the enthusiasm and arouse the patriotism of the entire country. 

Certifying again to his ability and usefulness as a fighter, let me read 
a cablegram from London : 

ASK UNITED STATES TROOPS TO BRING INDIANS TO AID IN FIGHT — 

CANADIAN OFFICERS SAY THEIR WORK AT THE FRONT 

SHOWS THEIR WORTH. 

{North American, July 24, 1917.) 

London, July 1. 

Canadian officers on leave here from the French front have infor- 
mally recommended to American officials that American Indians be 
employed or enlisted for service with the American expeditionary 
forces. Manitobans with the Canadians have done excellent work at 
scouting in No Man's Land. 

16 



"These Indians with us,'' said a captain with the Canadian forces 
whose parents live in Philadelphia, "have performed services that 
never could have been performed by a white man. The Indian of 
North America has it in his bones to be a good fighter and a crafty 
one. We have them in nearly every regiment. 

"Again and again during the past two years I have seen them go out 
at night between the trenches without firing a shot, without making 
the slightest noise or creating the slightest disturbance, come back 
leading a half-dozen or so Germans from whom much valuable infor- 
mation has been obtained." 

Here is also a letter I received this morning from Charles C. Moore, a 
Shoshone Indian, who does business on Wall Street, and which is ample 
evidence of the kind of a letter an Indian can write : 

63 Wall Street, New York City, July 2i, 1917. 
Dr. Joseph K. Dixon, 

New Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Dr. Dixon : In reply to your letter of recent date with refer- , 

ence to your bill for the House, I am pleased to learn that some one 
is making some effort on behalf of the American Indian, and I trust 
your efforts will meet with success. 

For your information I would state that I was born on the Sho- 
shone Indian Reservation and have spent the greater part of my life 
in close touch with the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians, as well as 
with the different tribes who visit on said reservations. Speaking 
from a knowledge of the Indian, my opinion is that he would make 
an excellent soldier under the leadership of intelligent men. We have 
but to look back over our own history to realize that the Indian is a 
good fighter. 

In the early days he made our best troops hustle, and friendly 
tribes furnished men who were of the greatest help as scouts with 
our troops. The Indian is an excellent horseman, a born fighter, the 
best tracker in the world, and can stand the hardships of a long cam- 
paign under adverse conditions much better than can the average 
white man. 

You will recall that shortly after the last trouble with Sitting Bull 
at Wounded Knee, several companies of Indians were taken into the 
United States service. One company was stationed at Fort Washakie 
under command of Captain Patrick Henry Ray, Sixth United States 
Infantry, and it was my good fortune to observe this company at 
garrison duty and to be with them on practice marches of some 
duration. I found them to be excellent soldiers, resourceful, and 
courageous, and in every way worthy of our uniform. 

Every American citizen should consider it his greatest privilege to 
be allowed to serve his country, and I have yet to learn any good 
reason why the American Indian should not be allowed to serve the 
only country he has. Speaking from an economic standpoint, the 
Indian produces little at home that would assist the Government in 
the war. This is generally not true with the white man, and for this 
reason the Indian would be rendering his best service for his Govern- 
ment if enlisted in the Army. 

Another important side that the Government must not lose sight 
of is the benefit of the training to the Indian and to future genera- 
tions. If border service is contemplated, 10 regiments of Indian cavalry 

17 



would undoubtedly render excellent services and would release 10 regi- 
ments of white soldiers for war service. In any service, whether at 
home or abroad, the Indian will undoubtedly prove himself worthy in 
every particular. 

Wishing you every success in your undertaking, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

Chas. C. Moore.. . 

Mr. McKenzie. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentleman a 
question? 

Mr. Dixon. Certainly. 

Mr. McKenzie. I would like to ask the gentleman whether he 
advocates the organization of 10 additional cavalry regiments to the 
number now provided for in the national-defense act, and whether 
he does not think that we have already provided for enough cavalry 
regiments? 

Mr. Dixon. There was an amendment to the Army bill providing 
that an opportunity be given for volunteers for four regiments or 
more of cavalry to patrol the border line, but that amendment was 
defeated, and there are 1400 miles of border line from California to 
Texas that is today practically unpatroUed. 

Mr. McKenzie. You do not get my point. In the national-defense 
act we provided for so many regiments of infantry and so many 
regiments of cavalry, and the question I am asking you is this, do 
you want the Congress of the United States to provide for 10 addi- 
tional regiments of cavalry? 

Mr. Dixon. I do. I want 10 regiments of Indian cavalry to patrol 
the border, or to be sent abroad, and this is the reason: The national- 
defense act provided for regiments of cavalry, but they are dismount- 
ing those regiments today and using them as infantry, and in some 
instances reorganizing them as artillery, so that there is practically 
no cavalry in this country today. 

Mr. Kahn. You contend that 10 regiments of Indian cavalry 
could still be employed as a cavalry patrol along the Mexican border? 

Mr. Dixon. Yes, sir. 

Mr. McKenzie. As I understand it, you wanted the Indians to 
go to France? 

Mr. Dixon. I would rather have them in the West. 

Let it be recalled also that it was twenty-six years ago when Lieuten- 
ant Scott recruited and trained his Troop L in the 7th Cavalry. There 
might have been a disposition then for the Indian to urge the presence of 
his squaw while he served as a soldier, but it must be remembered that this 
was a custom in his old days of tribal warfare, and that this very time was 
the transition period from his wild life to the days of slavery on the reser- 
vation. 



AN UNANSWERABLE There is a further unanswerable consideration : 
ARGUMENT FOR THE During the last twenty-five years, from 1892 to 
EMPLOYMENT OF AN 1916, the Government has appropriated for the 
UNUSED FORCE military training of young men in the United 

States Military Academy at West Point the sum 
of twenty-five million one thousand eight hundred and four dollars and 
twenty cents ($25,001,804.20), and during those twenty-five years there 
have been 1,930 graduates. 

18 



During the same period (twenty-five years, 1892 to 1916), the Gov- 
ernment has appropriated for the training and education of the Indian, 
eighty-three million four hundred and fifty-eight thousand and fifty-three 
dollars ($83,458,053.00) — an excess in training the Indian above the train- 
ing of soldiers at West Point of fifty-eight million four hundred and fifty- 
six thousand tvv'o hundred and forty dollars and eighty cents ($58,456,- 
240.80), with a total enrollment of Indian pupils in the Indian schools and 
more pretentious academies of 723,252, an average enrollment for each of 
the twenty-five years of 28,930. These figures are taken from the annual 
reports of the Indian Office ; the figures of West Point are supplied by the 
Legislative Reference Division's Office of the Library of Congress. 

It is argued in some quarters that the Indian does not speak the Eng- 
lish language, and therefore it would be awkward to segregate him in 
regiments. Then, it may be asked with reason, why have we expended the 
prodigious sum of over eighty-three millions of dollars on over 723,000 
Indian students if they cannot speak English? It has not been found 
necessary to teach the Moros of the Philippines or any of the foreign 
contingents to speak English. It may be further stated that in all these 
Indian schools the students are enrolled in military classes, and are taught 
the manual of arms. We are proud to utilize the product of West Point 
and are eager to acclaim the military achievements of soldiers trained at 
this remarkable centre. But we hesitate to utilize the services of the 
Indian upon whose training we have spent over three times as many 
millions of dollars. Is it not a prodigal waste of money, or a prodigal 
waste of material, or a prodigal waste of an unused force? 

It is related by Dr. George Haven Putman that when Lee the great 
and Grant the magnanimous had gathered at Appomattox, the one to 
acknowledge defeat, the other to make defeat glorious, that in arranging 
the details of the surrender, Grant looked about the group in the room, his 
eye falling upon General John Morgan, a brigade commander who had 
during the last few months served on Grant's staff. "General Morgan, I 
will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to draft 
this paper." Morgan was a full-blood Indian, belonging to the Iroquois 
tribe of New York. Thus it was that an INDIAN joined the hands of the 
North and the South after more than four years of bloody strife. 

Out from among the Indian tribes there may come, if you call them, 
many a John Morgan. 

"Quick at the bidding of their country's call 
Across the wide, far ranges red men come, 
Forgetting wrongs committed on their race; 
They hear the drumbeats like the tom-tom's call. 
To sit in judgment at the council place; 
And grave, erect, stern-eyed, they muster in 
Beside the white man, brother now in need." 

Jean Brook Burt. 

They stand ready for the call. Charles C. Moore, of New York City, 
writes to Mr. Rodman Wanamaker : 

19 



"I would be pleased to organize two or three troops from the 
Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians in Wyoming. I was born and brought 
up on their reservation, speak their language, and am in close touch 
with them. The Shoshone Indians are born fighters, and yet have the 
distinction of having never fought against the whites. As you know, 
it was a Shoshone woman who guided the Lewis and Clark expedition 
across the difficult part of the continent. The young Indians are 
wonderful riders and would make good troopers." 

Mr. Kahn. Are the Shoshone Indians still living in tribal rela- 
tions? 

Mr. Dixon. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Kahn. And the Arapahoes? 

Mr. Dixon. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Kahn. And the Papagoes? 

Mr. Dixon. Yes, sir; the Papagoes, the Pimas and Salt River 
Indians. I am now coming, Mr. Kahn, to Mr. Thackery's statement 
that you referred to. 

Let me urge that the 

COUNTRY NEEDS THE There are fourteen hundred miles of border 
SERVICES OF THE line between Mexico and the United States, 

INDIAN stretching from California to Texas. Within 

a few rods of the line, in that incomparable 
Imperial Valley, which helps to furnish sustenance for the nation and the 
nations of the earth, there are irrigation projects that cost hundreds of 
millions of dollars. It would take years to reconstruct them, but they 
could be destroyed like the waving of a magic wand. 

It is infantile folly to leave that vast border line without protection. 
It does not take the acumen of a statesman to discern the vulnerability of 
that unprotected border, and that man must be an unreasoning interpreter 
of coming events who cannot foresee that an alert and masterful foe will 
one day strike from that quarter. Nay, has not Germany already parti- 
tioned off Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California to a 
government which hates the "Gringos"? 

The silence along that border at this hour is almost ominous, and fore- 
tells the coming storm. It is almost uncanny that the blow has not already 
come. Shall the Hun find us asleep? 

When the Army bill was considered in both houses of the Congress, 
the amendment to create volunteer regiments of cavalry to patrol the 
border was defeated. And at this hour, vast millions of dollars' worth 
of property, cities and myriads of homes holding sacred womanhood and 
tender childhood, are left without protecting hand from the ravages of a 
wild and barbarous invasion. 

To avail ourselves of the use of regiments of Indian cavalry to protect 
that long and important patrol, is but ordinary common sense. There are 
50,000 Indians ready to spring into the saddle. They are inured to hard- 
ship. They can ride as no white man can ride. They can live where a 
white man cannot live. They know every foot of the ground. They would 
protect every mile of that border from vandal hand and invading foot. 

20 



Moreover, the use of these regiments of Indian cavalry would release 
units for service in France ; would remake the Indian, reestablishing in his 
mind a new sense of responsibility, and create a new apprehension of the 
meaning of life. It would give to him a new throb of life in the conscious- 
ness that HE was needed — that HE could be USEFUL by the employment 
of his strategic fighting powers to help quell the tempest of a world-wide 
rebellion. 

Mr. Chairman : — A matter worthy of most serious consideration is to 
be found in a conversation held between Hon. Julius Kahn, of California, 
and Mr. Frank Thackery, the Superintendent of the Pima Reservation near 
Sacaton, Arizona. Mr. Thackery is without question one of the most 
reliable and effective men in the Indian service. He said to Mr. Kahn a 
few weeks ago, during a visit to Washington : 

"My Indians — the Pimas, Maricopas and Papagoes — have a 
method of secret communication with the Yaqui Indians of Mexico, 
and if an uprising should occur, they could do more than any other 
force of which I know to quell the uprising." 

I ask you, Mr. Chairman, if it is either common sense or patriotism to 
allow this tremendous and effective force to remain idle and unused. It is 
known to all men that the Yaqui Indians are the dominant fighting power of 
Mexico, and to be able by some subtle and unseen power to enlist this ter- 
rible and vital arm of Germany and Mexico combined in the service of the 
United States, would be to hail the stars to fight in their courses for our 
beloved America. 

Let me now speak to you for a moment upon 

VII. The ethnic value of the race is amply at- 

THE CAPABILITY OF tested in the reports of Professor Ales 

THE INDIAN TO ASSUME Hrdlicka, Director of the Division of Phys- 
THE PRIVILEGES AND ical Anthropology in the United States 

RESPONSIBILITIES OF National Museum. Prof. Hrdlicka is one of 

CITIZENSHIP the foremost anthropologists of this coun- 

try, or any country. In his studies of skull 
formation, his researches led him to a comparison of the skulls of the intel- 
lectual New Englander and the Sioux Indian. Prof. Hrdlicka found that 
the Sioux skull measured a fraction larger than the skull of the Yankee, but 
that the thickness of the skull of the Indian allowed for equal brain capacity 
in both the white and the red. The Indian has the capacity, he has been 
denied the opportunity. 

In public life there are Indians, or men who hold in their veins the 
blood of the "First Americans," who have achieved most signal distinc- 
tion. I need only mention the distinguished Senators from Kansas and 
Oklahoma, Mr. Curtis and Mr. Owen ; such men in the Halls of Congress 
as the Hon. Charles D. Carter, of Oklahoma, Chairman of the Committee 
on Indian Affairs, to secure instant recognition of their high attainments. 
There is also Mr. Houston B. Teehee, the present Registrar of the United 
States Treasury, and Mr. Francis La Flesche, assistant in the Bureau of 

21 



Ethnology. In civil life I may refer to Dr. Carlos Montezuma, of Chicago, 
one of the most eminent surgeons in the country, who is a full-blood Indian. 

INDIAN I might speak of Indians whose oratory would rank with 

ORATORY that of a Clay or a Webster. I have only to mention the 
names of such illustrious chiefs as Powhatan, Massasoit, 
Pontiac, Tecumseh, Red Jacket, Osceola, Black Hawk, Red Cloud, Logan 
and Grangula. 

It was Black Hawk who said : 

"An Indian who is as bad as the white man, could not live in our 
nation; he would be put to death and eaten up by the wolves. The 
white men are bad schoolmasters; they carry false looks and deal 
in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat 
him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make 
them drunk, to deceive them and ruin our wives. We told them to let 
us alone and keep away from us, but they followed on and beset our 
parties, and they coiled themselves among us like snakes. They 
poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. 
We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterers, lazy 
drones, all talkers and no workers." 

The whole speech burns with the fiery eloquence of self-abnegation, 
lover of his kinsmen, patriotism and triumph of soul. 

Again, I cite the celebrated speech of Logan after the murder by the 
whites of his wife and children. A man celebrated in peace and war, and 
long distinguished as the friend of the whites: 

"I appeal to any white man to say, if he ever entered Logan's 
lodge hungry, and he gave him no meat; if he ever came cold and 
naked, and Logan clothed him not. During the last long and bloody 
war, Logan remained inactive in his lodge, and advocated peace. 
Such was his love for the stranger, that his countrymen pointed as 
they passed, and said Logan is the friend of the white man. I had 
thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Col. 
Cresap, who last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all 
of the relations of Logan, not sparing even his wife and children. 
There runs not a drop of his blood in the veins of any living creature. 
This called on me for vengeance. I have sought it. I have killed 
many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice 
at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the 
joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to 
save his Ufe. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one." 

In his notes on Virginia, Mr. Jefferson says of this speech : 

"I may challenge the whole of the orations of Demosthenes and 
Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished 
more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to this speech of 
Logan, the Mingo Chief." 

All true oratory is like a window-pane — the character of the man 
speaking shines through. Countless examples of silvery Indian speech 
might be adduced. 

One character example must suffice. When the Last Great Indian 
Council was held in the Valley of the Little Big Horn, under the direction 

22 



of the Second Historical Expedition to the Indian Country, sent out by 
Rodman Wanamaker, Chief Running Bird, from Oklahoma, said: 

"I am getting old now, and all I wish at the present time is that 
my children shall grow up industrious and work, because they cannot 
get honor in the war as I used to get it — they can only get honor 
now by working hard. I can only teach my children that the way 
to get honor is to go to work and be good men and women. These 
impressions have been strengthened by this Council. 

When Mr. Wanamaker sent forth his expedition of citizenship to all 
the tribes in the confines of the United States, President Wilson delivered 
an address into the phonographic receiver, which was reproduced in record 
form and delivered in his own tone of voice to the Indian tribes assembled 
on every reservation. Let me quote a paragraph of this remarkable 
address, demonstrating most clearly the ability of the Indian to take on 
citizenship. The time of this notable utterance dates back to May, 1913 : 

"The Great White Father now calls you his 'brothers,' not his 
'children.' Because you have shown in your education and in your * 

settled ways of life, staunch, manly, worthy qualities of sound char- 
acter, the nation is about to give you distinguished recognition through 
the erection of a monument in honor of the Indian people, in the 
Harbor of New York. The erection of that monument will usher 
in that day which Thomas Jefferson said he would rejoice to see, 
'when the Red Men become truly one people with us, enjoying all 
the rights and privileges we do, and living in peace and plenty.' I 
REJOICE TO FORESEE THE DAY." 

Beyond the fact that the Indian is capable of taking on citizenship, 
I think few will have the temerity to dispute his title to citizenship in this 
country. He once owned in undisputed fee simple every foot of this great 
continent. He has never known any other country. To him, the soil 
which we have dedicated to liberty, freedom and equality has always been 
his "mother," while the sun that has warmed it into fruitfulness has 
always been his "father." That he has had little to do with the govern- 
ment and institutions which we have erected here, is less his fault than 
ours. We have never given him a fair chance. He has capacity for self- 
government. We know that men of his race have been wise in council, 
magnetic in leadership, intelligent in law-making, and just in the execution 
of laws. You have but to recall the very pertinent example of the code of 
laws expounded by the illustrious Iroquois — a code of laws not surpassed 
by any law-making confederation in history. 

To-day the first argument that is advanced in support of the conten- 
tion that the Government must continue to exercise the strictest guardian- 
ship over the Indian, holding and administering his property for him, is 
that if the Indian is given possession of his property he will speedily fall 
a victim to unscrupulous whites and be swindled out of it. What an 
indictment that is of the white man's treatment of the red man ! We must 
protect him AGAINST OURSELVES, at the cost of his liberty, self- 
respect, and his potential development as a useful citizen. 

23 



To-day, under our present regulations, we permit the red man to 
enlist in the army, but he is the only man who can enlist without being 
or becoming a citizen of the United States. 

The extraordinary exception that is thus made in the case of the 
Indian constitutes in itself a strong argument in support of the present 
measure. We require the white man or the black man, or any man, to be a 
citizen before he can enlist in our military establishment, but we trust the 
Indian to fight with us and for us without any such requirement. If 
the Indian is worthy of this trust, is he not worthy of citizenship? 

Indeed, Mr. Chairman, is it not a matter of amazement that we can 
ask any man to fight for the flag, when that flag is not his flag, for a 
country that is not his country in the fullest and best sense of the word? 

Mr. Kahn. Mr. Dixon, do you contend that it is possible under 
the conscription act to take those Indians who are wards of the 
Republic into the military service? 

Mr. Dixon. Yes, sir; I do. 

Mr. Kahn. I think it has been held that they can not be taken 
by conscription. I think they took that very matter up, and if they 
are to be taken into the service at all, it will have to be done by a bill 
of this kind, or some other bill, because they have held, as I understand 
it, that you can not conscript a ward of the Nation. 

Mr. McKenzie. Is there anjrthing in the law prohibiting the 
Federal Government from enlisting as volunteers a regiment of Indians 
to serve in the Regular Army? Is there any prohibition against that? 

Mr. Kahn. I do not know whether they would take them in or 
not. They are wards of the Nation, and they would have to have the 
consent of the Nation, I assume. 

Mr. Gordon. That consent could be given by Congress. 

Mr. Dixon. That is what we want in this bill. The point is that 
we want to give them the right, at the same time, to become a part of 
the country. 

Mr. Anthony. Are all Indians of military age now registered 
under the draft act? 

Mr. Dixon. An attempt was made to register them, but whether 
it was completed or not I can not say. 

Mr. Kahn. They refused to be registered? 

Mr. Dixon. Some of them did. 

Mr. (Jordon. I suppose they were within their rights. Those 
sustaining tribal relations unquestibnably would not be subject to draft 

Mr. Evans. They want to serve in their own companies or organi- 
zations. 

Mr. Gordon. In other words, they want to volunteer? 

Mr. Kahn. They want to serve in distinctive organizations com- 
posed entirely of their own people. 

On that May day when a nation-wide registration was ordered of 
all males between the ages of 21 and 31, an incident occurred in the City 
Hall of Philadelphia which should bring a blush of shame to the cheek 
of Dem.ocracy. 

A Sioux Indian presented himself at the registration booth for the 
selective draft. He carried in his hand a suit case. Once he owned the 

24 



whole of the United States, now he carried all of the United States that 
he owned in that suit case. 

"Are you an alien?" he was asked. 

"No; I was born in the United States." 

"Then you are a citizen," he was informed. 

"No, I am not a citizen. I am not an alien." 

"What are you, then?" 

"I am an Indian. I have neither the rights of an alien nor of a 
citizen, yet I was born in the United States. My father is a full- 
blood Sioux Chieftain. I am a male between 21 and 31, and must 
offer myself for military service." 

The Registration Board was puzzled for many minutes, and finally 
recorded him as — "Big Face, carrying suit case, born in the United States, 
but not a citizen." 

This brave young Indian is good enough to become a target for 
German shrapnel — but WE are not good enough to make him a part of the 
country for which he is willing to fight. He is good enough to fight our 
battles, but not good enough to become one of us. 

When the stress was on all over the country to raise the Liberty 
Loan, a full-blood Creek Indian of Oklahoma, "Jackson Barnett" by name, 
had $800,000 on deposit in the United States Treasury. He wished to sub- 
scribe to the Liberty Loan; but he is a ward of the Government — styled 
as "an incompetent." He was not allowed to subscribe. But a resolution 
passed the United States Senate allowing the Indian to subscribe $640,000. 
In other words, the possessions of this Indian were good enough to use 
for the prosecution of the war — but the man himself is not good enough 
to share the privileges of the country to which he gives his money. 

Gentlemen, is it not a dark and fateful irony that broods with black 
and vulture-like wings above this very palpable exhibition of tyranny! 
Are not these glaring examples — and there are ten thousand more — a 
striking contravention of the spirit and genius of our times? Is not the 
whole fabric of our administration of Indian affairs in direst conflict with 
the great principles of human democracy? 

The sooner we restore to the Indian his birthright, his divine right 
of liberty, and grant to him the right of citizenship, the sooner shall we 
become consistent with the provisions of our Constitution and our national 
ideals. 

The insistent and persistent persecution and elimination of the Indian 
is one of the tragic phases of our national development. 

This gradual crushing of the Indian is pathetically set forth by Arthur 
Chapman, who has lived with the Indian and knows the Indian. 

"The white man's road is hard for us to follow; 

Our feet are bruised and bleeding, but who shall heed our cries? 
The white man's code — what has it been but hollow? 

No ears have caught our pleading — unheard the red man dies. 

"The white man's creed is lost in white man's sinning; 
Our faith is slowly flagging — no door shall let us in ; 
None sees our need, tho' fast our ranks are thinning, 
The weary feet are lagging that wear the moccasin. 

25 



"The white man's word — what has it been but broken? 

Our lodge-fires low are burning — without the air is cold ; 
And thus unheard, with sorrows deep, unspoken, 

All hopeless are we turning — we who were KINGS of old." 

THE ALLEGED CITIZENSHIP Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
OF THE INDIAN AN Committee:— I anticipate the contention 

ARTIFICE OF SPEECH that many of our Indians are now citi- 

zens. That some of them are is true. 
But it is an exhibition of flamboyant hypocrisy to foist that state- 
ment before the nation as a screen for dereliction in a righteous duty. 
Those Indians who are accounted as citizens are not citizens in the full, 
large sense of the meaning of that term. It is an artifice of speech — it is a 
substitution and subversion of the truth. And the statement is born of 
utter ignorance of the facts or wilful perversion of the truth. 

The report of the Indian Commissioner for 1916 states that there are 
78,985 Indians who are citizens of the United States, and that 26,290 of 
them vote. 

It is pertinent here to say that the Indians enumerated by the Com- 
missioner of Indian Affairs as citizens for the most part live in Oklahoma — 
a State which holds one-third of the entire Indian population of the coun- 
try. Dakota must be added to Oklahoma. The right of suflfrage has been 
granted by special acts of the Congress, or by reason of the Indians having 
received allotments of land prior to the year 1906, when the Burke Act was 
passed, making the Indian ineligible to vote until patents in fee simple were 
granted, and these patents in fee simple were not to be granted until the 
expiration of 25 years. There are also some who are nominated as citi- 
zens, several thousand, perhaps, who have received patents in fee simple 
since allotments were made in the provision of the Act of 1906. 

The Omaha Indians in Nebraska and some of the Winnebagoes and 
Santees also vote. Most of the voters, however, are in the Dakotas and 
Oklahoma. 

At Hampton Institute, on February 8, 1917, in celebration of Indian 
Citizenship Day, Miss Anna L. Dawes delivered an address on "The Indian 
as a Citizen." Miss Dawes said : 

"It is thirty years since the Severalty bill was passed, making it 
possible for the Indians' land to be allotted and the Indian ward to 
become a citizen — thirty years, the life of a generation. I stand here 
today in behalf of my father, Henry Laurens Dawes, who wrote the 
bill and procured its passage. . . . My father greatly admired the 
high qualities of your race, and his interest in it was profound." 

After expounding the powers and privileges of the bill which were to 
accrue to the interest and well-being of the Indian, Miss Dawes proceeds 
to say to the assembled Indians at Hampton Institute — 

"All men do not believe as Mr. Dawes did, that liberty and law 
are worth more than protection, and, in one way and another since 
that day, restrictions have been preserved and full citizenship post- 
poned." 

26 



Further she states : 

"Mr. Dawes believed the fundamental principle of this — that 
of full and immediate citizenship to be the indispensable foundation 
of the whole structure. IT IS BY REASON OF THE LATER 
SMOTHERING OF THAT PRINCIPLE UNDER THE PILLOWS 
OF GOVERNMENT PROTECTION, THAT WE HAVE NEVER 
SEEN THE FULL EFFECT OF THE LAW." 

Recurring to the Indian's ability to vote. The statement has been 
made that the figures 26,290 probably exceed the actual number of Indian 
voters by fifty per cent. There is, however, probably no way of disproving 
the figures, which are doubtless based upon those eligible rather than upon 
the real estimate of voters. We are to bear in mind that ninety per cent, 
of those mentioned as citizens who vote because they have received patents 
in fee for land, are landless, because of the system which did not in any par- 
ticular prepare them for citizenship by giving them local self-government, 
and thus made them an easy prey for the white man the moment the patent 
in fee was granted. We are also to bear in mind that many of the voters 
who received the right to vote under the Burke Act are still living under 
restrictions as to their property and land which make their exercise of the 
franchise a sham and a mockery. 

The term "citizenship" as applied to the Indian cannot be interpreted 
through the right to vote alone. The citizenship of the Indian has suf- 
fered, not only by depriving him of the right of the franchise in many 
cases, and not necessarily because of the restrictions (many of them 
impractical and deleterious) upon the free use of his property, but largely 
because of the narrow bureaucratic and petty political methods of adminis- 
tration which have destroyed self-government on the Indian reservations 
and have taken no account of the tribal form of government as a vehicle 
for carrying the Indian forward by gradual steps to an appreciation of 
the white man's government and the white man's law. 

Technically, the Indians, many of them, have received the right to 
vote. Practically, they have been wholly robbed, by our system, of the 
opportunity and the only means (the process of local self-government) 
of preparing themselves for an intelligent exercise of that right. And such 
have been the methods and character of the restrictions upon their prop- 
erty that in the real sense of the term they ARE NOT CITIZENS AND 
CANNOT BE. 

CITIZENSHIP FOR ALL We fought a great war to free the black man, 
BUT THE INDIAN and immediately gave him citizenship. We 

fought another war to free Cuba, Porto Rico 
and the Philippines from Spanish tyranny, and we have given the Cuban 
complete autonomy, the Porto Rican full citizenship, and the Filipino 
partial citizenship and the right of self-government. Why should we con- 
tinue to deny the red man, who does not suffer in comparison, either in 
ability or character, these same blessings? We accept the Nihilist and 
reject the Indian. Is it not intolerable injustice? 

The truth of the matter is, we have neither been fair nor have we been 
just with the Indian. We have been guilty of injustice and unfairness 

27 



from the very day our forefathers undertook to civilize him with firearms 
and "firewater." 

Those pages of our history which tell of our treatment of the Indian 
are pages that should bring a blush of shame. We came without his invi- 
tation, and we stayed without his permission. We taught him that force 
was right when exercised by the white, but a crime when resorted to by 
the red. He yielded us the most boundless kingdom on earth, and in return 
we gave him hopes of a kingdom on high. The truth is, we have stolen 
their earth and thus unfitted ourselves to share their heaven. We made his 
country our country, but we did not make our flag his flag. It is a scar 
upon our democracy that from the very outset of our dealings with the red 
man, until recent years, we have done little to teach him to love and revere 
the Stars and Stripes. Instead, we have taught him to fear the flag. It has 
been to him a flag of oppression and aggression. It stands to him as the 
badge of the policeman does to us — as a symbol of authority. 

THE INDIAN STILL And yet, despite all this, the Indian does love the 
LOVES THE FLAG flag, and today he is ready to fight for it, and if 

need be, die for it ! 
We have abundant evidence of this. On a June day in 1913, at Oto, 
amid the fertile fields of Oklahoma, Indians of five tribes gathered for the 
sole purpose of taking part in the ceremony of raising the flag, and they 
heard a Pawnee Chieftain pledge their faith in these words : 

"We Indians know the stars. We understand the heavens. We 
understand their importance, and although the Spanish flag once 
waved over us, when we see the blue in this flag, representing the 
blue in the heavens, when we see the stars upon the blue, which we 
know are from the heavens, we think God must have put it into the 
hearts of the people to make such a flag, and it comes to us today 
for the first time as our flag, and we are ready to honor it." 

Turn from this pledge of loyalty uttered by a Pawnee Chief, to that 
of a Papago Chief on the white sands of the desert of Arizona : 

"Today you bring us the flag. We turn our backs upon the past, 
and we will follow the flag. We will stand by it. We will do every- 
thing we can to protect it. We will fight for it!" 

MR. RODMAN WANAMAKER'S For a period of seven months ceremo- 
GREAT WORK nies similar to these were held, and 

pledges like these were volunteered, on 
every Indian reservation in the United States, and the flag was thus carried 
to every one of the 189 tribes. 

This demonstration of the loyalty and patriotism of the North Ameri- 
can Indian was made possible by a distinguished citizen of Pennsylvania, 
Rodman Wanamaker, Esq., who has labored generously and assiduously to 
preserve a written and pictorial record of the Indian, and today is using 
the great powers of his mind and heart for the emancipation of the race. 

A little less than ten years ago Mr. Wanamaker became impressed 
with the importance of preserving an accurate historical and pictorial 
record of the "Vanishing Race," for the benefit of future generations, and 

28 



to this end he equipped and sent out under competent leadership three expe- 
ditions to the Indian country to study the Indian on his home ground. The 
reports of these expeditions revealed such virility of mind and integrity of 
character as fundamental traits of the Indian, that Mr. Wanamaker deter- 
mined that he vi^ould take the lead in a movement for the erection of a great 
National Indian Memorial. Acting upon his suggestion, the Congress of 
the United States passed an act in 1911 authorizing the erection of this 
Memorial on the Government reservation at Fort Wadsworth, Staten 
Island; and the Federal Fine Arts Commission, together with the Com- 
mission created by the Congress, located the site of the Memorial on this 
hill-crest, overlooking the Harbor of New York. 

Opening ceremonies incident to the work were held there on Washing- 
ton's birthday, in 1913, and William Howard Taft, then President of the 
United States, indicated his interest in the project by attending the cere- 
monies and turning the first shovelful of earth. Members of his Cabinet, 
Governors, Mayors of cities, eminent citizens from all walks of life, a bat- 
talion of United States troops, military bands, AND THIRTY-TWO 
INDIAN CHIEFS from Western reservations participated in the notablfe 
ceremonies. 

THE INDIANS' PLEDGE Upon that occasion these Indian chieftains 
OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE united in the impressive rite of raising the 
U. S. GOVERNMENT American flag. For the first time in the 

history of their people, they raised our flag 
and made it their flag. And under its folds these grizzled old warriors 
signed by pen and thumb-print a declaration of allegiance to the United 
States Government, which they had composed themselves, saying: 

"THOUGH A CONQUERED RACE, WITH OUR RIGHT 
HANDS EXTENDED IN BROTHERLY LOVE, OUR LEFT 
HANDS HOLDING THE PIPE OF PEACE, WE HEREBY BURY 
ALL PAST ILL FEELINGS AND PROCLAIM ABROAD TO ALL 
THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD OUR FIRM ALLEGIANCE TO 
THIS NATION AND TO THE STARS AND STRIPES. AND 
DECLARE THAT HENCEFORTH AND FOREVER, IN ALL 
WALKS OF LIFE, AND EVERY FIELD OF ENDEAVOR, WE 
SHALL BE AS BROTHERS, STRIVING HAND IN HAND, AND 
WILL RETURN TO OUR PEOPLE AND TELL THEM THE 
STORY OF THIS MEMORIAL AND URGE UPON THEM THEIR 
CONTINUAL ALLEGIANCE TO OUR COMMON COUNTRY." 

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee, after such a pro- 
found and far-reaching declaration of loyalty and patriotism, can there 
be a doubt in your minds regarding the safety and obligation of the nation 
to enlist the Indians as units, to serve against the bitterest and most 
despotic antagonists the world has ever known? 

It was the inspiration growing out of the spirit and solemnity of this 
occasion that led Mr. Wanamaker to organize and equip the Expedition 
of Citizenship which repeated on every Indian reservation the patriotic 
ceremonies carried out at Fort Wadsworth. Mr. Wanamaker not only 

29 



presented a flag to each tribe, but his representatives secured on parch- 
ment the signatures by pen and thumb-print of the 189 tribes to the 
declaration of allegiance composed for the Memorial ceremonies. 

This Expedition was sent out under the sanction and with the approval 
of the President of the United States, who was then, as now, Woodrow 
Wilson. 

Again I recur to the address of Thomas Jefferson : 

"My children, I shall rejoice to see the day when the red men, 
our neighbors, become truly one people with us, enjoying all the rights 
and privileges we do." 

THAT is the pledge and promise of citizenship made to the American 
Indian by President Jefferson, and endorsed and renewed by President 
Wilson a hundred years later. It is high time that we REDEEMED it. 

Mr. Wanamaker has suggested the erection of a great Indian Memo- 
rial, but this Government should rear the Indian a memorial, greater, more 
lasting, and more glorious than any structure of granite and bronze. We 
should recruit the Indian to help fight the battles of the nation, and then 
grant him citizenship at once, a priceless boon and a heritage for all time ; 
and we should do this, not merely because we want him to fight for us, but 
it becomes us to enter this war with clean hands. Of what avail our blows 
against injustice abroad, if we do not practice justice at home? 

Be not unmindful of the words of the President in picturing this 
as a war between Democracy and Autocracy. We boast ourselves the 
greatest democracy of all ages. We should make good that boast by com- 
pleting our democratization by giving to that element of our people, the 
American Indian, a full, complete and immediate citizenship, the obliga- 
tions of which they are qualified to discharge and the sacrifices of which 
they are willing to make. 

The nation surely will not longer deny this supreme emotion to the 
red man. The nation will surely call into active service this efficient and 
still unused force, and then will allow the red man to call the country 
which he once owned, HIS "Fatherland." I plead with you, gentlemen of 
the Military Committee of the Senate, to allow the Indian to look upon the 
Stars and Stripes no longer as a badge of authority, but as the undying 
symbol of patriotism, liberty and justice. 

STATEMENT OF MR. VICTOR J. EVANS, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

Mr. Kahn. Do you desire to make a statement? 

Mr. Evans. The only statement I care to make is that the North- 
ern Cheyennes, who are the greatest of the fighting Indians and are 
known as the fighting Cheyennes, have communicated with me by 
telegram and say that they want to fight, but that they do not want 
to be forced into regiments with soldiers from Montana and other 
places. They want their own organizations. There are only a very few 
of them who can speak the English langruage. The Sioux feel the 
same way, and also the Crows, Blaekfeet, and all the plains tribes. 

Mr. Kahn. How many regiments do you think could be raised 
among those people? 

30 



Mr. Evans. Among the Sioux there are about 30,000. 

Mr. Kahn. Of fighting age? 

Mr. Evans. No; that is the total. There are 1,500 Northern 
Cheyennes, about 1,500 Crows, and about 2,000 Blackfeet, and about 
2,000 Flatheads. 

Mr. Kahn. That is the total in each tribe? 

Mr. Evans. Yes; you could raise 10,000 cavalry, including the 
Comanches, Kiowas, Southern Cheyennes, and Arapahoes. Among 
them all probably you could get 25,000 cavalry of first-class men who 
eould pass the physical examination. 

Mr. Kahn. And they are anxious to fight for their country if they 
are given the opportunity? 

Mr. Evans. Yes; but they want their own organizations, under 
Regular Army officers. 

Mr. Kahn. We are doing that now. 

Mr. Evans. But the War Department opposes the organization 
of any further separate companies based on race. 

Me. McKenzie. Would they go into infantry regiments? 

Mr. Evans. They are natural-born horsemen. 

Mr. Greene. Will there be any likelihood of any tribal jealousies 
or friction if tribes are intermixed in these organizations? 

Mr. Evans. No; they all visit each other now. They hold dances 
every fall, you know. For instance, on the Custer battle-field they 
held a celebration, and there were 20,000 Indians there, and two or 
three thousand of them had automobiles. They came all the way from 
the Pacific coast. 

Mr. Kahn. Do they speak a common language? 

Mr. Evans. They all speak a sign language. 

Dr. Dixon. They have a universal sign language, but there are 
as many dialects in California and Washington among the Indians 
as in all of Europe. 

Mr. Kahn. From how many various tribes have you heard to 
the effect that they would be willing to fight in this war? 

Mr. Evans. Well, from practically all the plains tribes — the 
Sioux, Cheyennes, Blackfoot, Arapahoes, Crows, Nez Perce 

Dr. Dixon. The Nez Perce are the people who produced Chief 
Joseph, you know. 

Mr. Kahn. Yes. The War Department has not shown any inten- 
tion of mixing up the black man with the white man in one regiment. 

Mr. Evans. No; and they say that is as far as they want to go, 
and they do not want to carry that out with the Indians. A number 
of Carlisle students have already enlisted in different companies in 
the East. 

Mr. Kahn. But those students have severed their tribal relation- 
ship, have they not? 

Mr. Evans. No; of course, a great many of those students are 
now working in munitions plants. There are at least twenty students 
down here at Gibbsboro, because that teaches them a trade ; and in the 
Baldwin Locomotive Works, I understand, there are over one hundred 
Indians — Apaches, Sioux, and all — working at the lathes. 

STATEMENT OF MR. FRANCIS LA FLESCHE, BUREAU OF 
AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

Mr. La Flesche. Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of Mr. Kahn's 
bill for one very important reason, and that is, the Indians are very 
fond of keeping together, and when separated they become very home- 
sick. Now, at the time of the Civil War a number of our young men 
— I belong to the Omaha Tribe — and a number of the Winnebago 

31 



-"MK r OF 



CONGRESS 

'"""If /I 




001 685 9077 



people, who are a neighboring tribe, had young men in the Army, and 
some of them are living today, and sometimes when they got together 
and spoke about their experiences in the Army they said that the 
greatest hardship that they endured was their separation — putting 
one Indian in one company and so on all around. Sometimes only 
two were sent together in a company, and they became so homesick 
that they were often tempted to desert; and, in fact, one man de- 
serted because he was all alone in one company. Therefore, I think 
this bill is a good provision, because if you keep the Indians together 
as a unit they give better service. As to their fighting qualities, they 
have demonstrated over and over again that they have not lacked 
courage at any time. 

Mr. Kahn. Is it your experience that in the present war they 
would like to participate with the Americans if they can be kept 
together in separate regiments? 

Mr. La Flesche. I am sure they would, because even back in the 
sixties these people whom I am telling you about were not citizens, 
but at the same time they regarded themselves as part of the people 
of this country, and they saw that the country was in danger and they 
offered their services. 

The Chairman. And they fought on both sides? _ 

Mr. La Flesche. Yes. 

Mr. Greene. In that connection may I ask you a question, not 
prompted altogether by curiosity, but because it enters into this ques- 
tion: Apart from men in the Indian reservations who have proven 
themselves individually worthy of citzenship, do the great bulk of 
the people understand quite intelligently the character of the war we 
are engaged in and the seriousness of it so far as this country is 
concerned? 

Mr. La Flesche. They do. I have been among the Omahas a 
number of times since this war began. They have discussed their 
rights and privileges in this country, and they feel that they are a 
part of this country, and when the country is in danger they are will- 
ing to go and take part in the defense of it. There was one old Indian 
who is seventy years old, who said: "I wish I were younger, about 
forty years younger; I would not hesitate to go into the Army." 

Mr. McKenzie. There is not any prejudice that you know of 
among the white men growing out of Indians serving with them, is 
there; white men as a rule have no prejudice against the Indian? 

Mr. La Flesche. I know of none today, but at the time I am 
telling you about, during the Civil War, these men who served in these 
various companies said there was a little prejudice against them, and 
at times they had to knock down a soldier or two to defend them- 
selves. 

Mr. McKenzie. The point I make is this: White men as a rule 
do not want to serve with Negroes, but that same prejudice does not 
exist toward the Indians. 

Mr. La Flesche. No, sir; I do not think it does. 

Mr. McKenzie. I have never observed it. 

Mr. Greene. On the other hand, there is admiration and respect 
for the Indian. He is not regarded at all in the same status with 
the Negro. 

Mr. La Flesche. That is true. At the same time I think the 
language is a barrier, because these men who served in the United 
States Army spoke very little English, and they could not talk with 
the soldiers. But when they are among themselves they are very 
happy. 

(The committee thereupon adjourned.) 

32 



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